Posted on 02/15/2003 4:18:25 PM PST by PatrickHenry
Just for comparison, my first paper, a fairly mundane piece of benchmark research published in 1981, got 46 citations over the same period.
Fringe science.
I thought I might have killed it this morning. At least it didn't turn blue and die.
Ah, your authority again. You must be an accomplished physicist.
It's a pop physics book.
So you say. We need more than your opinion, Professor. Show us your badge.
But I did find one review by a real physicist.
I see. We need a "real" physicist. You are giving us words, Professor, and opinions, but nothing else. Are you a physicist or are you just passing along the opinions of others? I will give you a bit of Walker's bio in due course. Perhaps you will then share your physics background with us so that we can take comfort that your strong opinions are backed by something more than, well, your strong opinions.
Quintessential fringe science, in other words.
The words speak for themselves and your editorialization is not required. Some other physicist disagrees. That's life. Walker includes lots of math in his book just so, I presume, the naysayer physicists and others such as yourself can challenge it. You are certainly most welcome to attempt to do so but your may first wish to read the book.
Some very fine minds have gone off on similar tangents.
Your bias is showing. Fine minds, you will admit, have a better track record than those who simply opine on the work of others.
We have your rhetoric. I'm unimpressed. Would you care to comment on substance?
Well, at least you are consistent, Phaedrus.
And then someone else said: “This is far too vague…. How is it key? The future is amorphous, ambiguous, undefined and immensely complex in its possibilities. What test does it give us?
Then the first observer observed: “This debate about free will has a fundamental flaw, and that is that it fails to recognize that things are as they are regardless of which side ‘wins’” [i.e., it seems a conclusion already has been firmly drawn on the matter of this question by this party to the debate].
Well, if that is so, Mr. First Observer, then human free will is “dead as a doornail,” right out of the starting gate. Unable by definition, on principle, to tell us anything about, or to affect the course of events -- that is, unable to affect or effect anything new in the world of human experience and endeavor. And we haven't even touched on the problem of "winning." How well does this mental construct really accord with what you personally know of Reality?
* * * * * *
I think open questions present themselves here that we won’t answer tonight, if in a lifetime.
So let’s just change the subject. You wrote:
It's called magnetic transparency. It's the way a really good piece of window glass filters out the visible spectrum.... I would like you to ponder for a moment what goes on in an MRI scan (technically an NMRI). You have a superconducting electromagnet powerful enough to make the protons in the molecules of you brain jiggle in resonance. Yet it has no discernable effect on people's ability to think, nor on the content of their thought. Why is that? Because the brain is 99.999 percent free of magnetic materials. There might be a few isolated pockets of magnetic material that may or may not be sensitive to the earth's magnetic field, but I assure you that if the brain were a radio receiver it would explode like a hamster in a microwave during an MRI scan.
So, let me thank you, js1138, for correcting the public record, and affording a new learning experience for non-scientific folk who maybe are playing “catch-up” WRT to the reigning scientific – and public – debate of these issues.
So here's a (probably dumb) question: If the brain "is 99.999 percent free of magnetic materials," then how can it be said to participate in a quantum universe that would seem to be dispositably described as a seething sea of electomagnetic possibility?
You give a good description of the "magnetic shield" defense -- here derived, I gather, from classical physics. I do have a few questions. You seemed to indicate that the ability to apperceive the idea of “future” was perhaps a mark of high-level consciousness. You seemed to suggest that a sure test (albeit still on trial) of human consciousness would be the ability to “anticipate” the future.
But what does this mean? Does “anticipate” mean “prove?” As in: Validate by means of the scientific method?
Another thing I wondered about: Do you think that consciousness is coextensive with thought --which, as you seem to define it, ultimately depends on words or other kinds of symbols? That is, that we humans are inexorably, ineluctably “language-dependent” for everything we know?
I find such questions interesting. Hope you do, too.
Bose condensation of most matter requires microkelvin temperatures. Cooper pair formation by electrons (which is the basis of supercondctivity) is about as strong as an interaction between elementary particles in condensed matter can get, and it disappears around 120K. You can observe other coherent quantum pheomena in solids, and rarely liquids, but they're scattered by random thermal motion of the atoms, and their lifetimes become short (i.e. sub microsecond) by about 100K. At room temperature (300K), atoms are vibrating incoherently at high amplitude, and the coherences that link quantum states are destroyed on a nanosecond timescale.
I’m wondering if you read the Alex Kaivarainen article because he does address your objection in the section titled “Mesoscopic molecular Bose condensation at physiological temperature: possible or not?” He starts by saying,
- From the flyleaf to The Physics of Consciousness
So here's a (probably dumb) question: If the brain "is 99.999 percent free of magnetic materials," then how can it be said to participate in a quantum universe that would seem to be dispositably described as a seething sea of electomagnetic possibility?
Every particle that has an electric charge -- electrons, protons -- can be affected by a magnetic field. The question is whether the components of the brain are affected to an extent that we need to concern ourselves with it. I'm sure you know about electromagnetic transparancy. If you have ever used a radio or television you know that some objects -- wood, for example -- do not block radio waves. You probably also know that antennae cannot be made from just any old material. The chemistry of an object makes it receptive or transparent to electomagnetic waves. I'm sure QM explains why this is, but that's over my head. You don't need to be a quantum mechanic to know that some things are transparent to magnetism. Among them are the components of the brain.
You seemed to suggest that a sure test (albeit still on trial) of human consciousness would be the ability to “anticipate” the future.
I don't have a sure test for anything. If I get one I'll start posting in blue. I did propose an operational definition of free will. It certainly isn't "sure" or complete, but it has some advantages. For one thing it is compatible with many concepts in experimental and psysiological psychology.
I don't recall proposing this as a test of consciousness. That is another, and to me, a more difficult issue. Anticipating consequences is an objectively observable phenomenon, something studied in psychology labs all over the world. It is usually discussed under the heading of learning theory. But what is learning, if it isn't adjusting behavior in anticipation of consequenses?
Do you think that consciousness is coextensive with thought --which, as you seem to define it, ultimately depends on words or other kinds of symbols?
I don't think consciousness requires language, but that is just an opinion. As for "thinking", I am reluctant to speculate about that. I may sound like a know-it-all at times, but I'm struggling with this, same as everyone.
As always, I find myself agreeing with you. It is very difficult for those who sustain a metaphysically naturalist worldview to waive off strong determinism, which is the polar opposite of free will. IMHO, it is a poison pill to the argument for atheism.
Likewise, lowering the bar in the definition of free will to nominal anticipation has the effect of equalizing mankind to rodents in sentience. Of course, animal rights activists are all over this looking for lawyers to defend "animal rights."
Lew Rockwell.com 7/25/00 Tibor Machan “A recent Rivera Live television talk program hosted several animal rights advocates who were given considerable air time defending their position in both analytical and emotion terms... There was a law professor, for example, who raised some questions but gave no clear cut argument against the idea that animals have rights akin to human beings, the position widely shared about those who got nearly all the air time on the program.”
Alamo-Girl, please correct me if any of the substance of this story is incomplete or incorrect.
After all this time, the physics community cannot get its mind around intangibility, real though it has proved to be. I am thus not surprised that Walker could be considered "fringe" within a group where timidity reigns. A paradigm shift is not required. Quantum mechanics IS a major paradim shift.
Walker covers all this and much more in his clear, eloquent, incisive book. It is a fine and beautiful work and I recommend it unreservedly.
I don't think nature cares much about our politics in formulating it's laws. Animal rights s a difficult issue, even for conservatives. There is another FR thread currently discussing cat health. Even conservatives get mushy about their pets. If they thought cats were mentally the equivalent of bricks, they would not have these concerns.
I don't see how anyone could doubt whether wave phenomenon has bearing on consciousness! ...assuming you have a quantifiable mental phenomenon that requires an explanation, and you have a verifiable interaction between wave phenomena and the mental phenomena. Where is the transmitter, the receiver, the demonstrated interaction?
And which community discovered these phenomena, and exactly what were they doing as they studied them? Nearly everything you own that uses electricity is designed by people versed in QM. How is it that they don't have their minds around it.
No argument. The physicists have been able to employ quantum mechanical theory and math of do wondrous electronic things. It is far-and-away the most productive scientific discovery in the history of mankind.
But for reference, here is the quote again ...
After all this time, the physics community cannot get its mind around intangibility...
... and I will let it stand unchanged because Man was able to use fire to his benefit thousands of years before he understood it in scientific terms. We can learn to use a tool but that does not mean we understand how it works.
Alamo-Girl, please correct me if any of the substance of this story is incomplete or incorrect.
That explanation is my understanding as well. For lurkers, I offer these two articles to help explain the issue of Bell’s Inequalities:
NONLOCALITY GETS MORE REAL. "Bell's Inequalities," the set of mathematical relations that would rule out the notion that distant quantum particles exert influences on each other at seemingly instantaneous rates, have now been violated over record large distances, with record high certainty, and with the elimination of an important loophole in three recent experiments, further solidifying the notion of "spooky action at a distance" in quantum particles. At the Optical Society of America meeting in Baltimore earlier this month, Paul Kwiat (kwiat@lanl.gov) of Los Alamos and his colleagues announced that they produced an ultrabright source of photon pairs for Bell's inequality experiments; they went on to verify the violation of Bell's inequalities to a record degree of certainty (preprint at p23.lanl.gov/agw/2crystal.pdf). Splitting a single photon of well-defined energy into a pair of photons with initially undefined energies, and sending each photon through a fiber-optic network to detectors 10 km apart, researchers in Switzerland (Wolfgang Tittel, Univ. Geneva, wolfgang.tittel@physics.unige.ch) showed that determining the energy for one photon by measuring it had instantaneously determined the energy of its neighbor 10 km away--a record set by the researchers last year but now demonstrated in an improved version of the original experiment. (Tittel et al., Physical Review Letters, 26 October 1998.) A University of Innsbruck group performed Bell measurements with detectors that randomly switched between settings rapidly enough to eliminate the "locality loophole," which posited that one detector might somehow send a signal to the other detector at light or sub-light speeds to affect its reading. (Weihs et al., upcoming paper in Phys. Rev. Lett., website at http://www.uibk.ac.at/c/c7/c704/qo/photon/_bellexp/)
THE FIRST ENTANGLEMENT OF THREE PHOTONS has been experimentally demonstrated by researchers at the University of Innsbruck (contact Harald Weinfurter, harald.weinfurter@uibk.ac.at, 011-43-512-507-6316). Individually, an entangled particle has properties (such as momentum) that are indeterminate and undefined until the particle is measured or otherwise disturbed. Measuring one entangled particle, however, defines its properties and seems to influence the properties of its partner or partners instantaneously, even if they are light years apart. In the present experiment, sending individual photons through a special crystal sometimes converted a photon into two pairs of entangled photons. After detecting a "trigger" photon, and interfering two of the three others in a beamsplitter, it became impossible to determine which photon came from which entangled pair. As a result, the respective properties of the three remaining photons were indeterminate, which is one way of saying that they were entangled (the first such observation for three physically separated particles). The researchers deduced that this entangled state is the long-coveted GHZ state proposed by physicists Daniel Greenberger, Michael Horne, and Anton Zeilinger in the late 1980s. In addition to facilitating more advanced forms of quantum cryptography, the GHZ state will help provide a nonstatistical test of the foundations of quantum mechanics. Albert Einstein, troubled by some implications of quantum science, believed that any rational description of nature is incomplete unless it is both a local and realistic theory: "realism" refers to the idea that a particle has properties that exist even before they are measured, and "locality" means that measuring one particle cannot affect the properties of another, physically separated particle faster than the speed of light. But quantum mechanics states that realism, locality--or both--must be violated. Previous experiments have provided highly convincing evidence against local realism, but these "Bell's inequalities" tests require the measurement of many pairs of entangled photons to build up a body of statistical evidence against the idea. In contrast, studying a single set of properties in the GHZ particles (not yet reported) could verify the predictions of quantum mechanics while contradicting those of local realism. (Bouwmeester et al., Physical Review Letters, 15 Feb.)
I agree! And I am anxious to read the Walker book.
Roger Penrose has taken a lot of heat as well, mostly from the disciplines who are threatened by his assertions. Stephen Wolfram is another who is criticized, in his case by using the very formalisms he seeks to debunk (LOL!)
The aversion to the intelligent design movement is so visceral that the opponent/scientists take to signing petitions of all things. Jeepers!
Old ideas die hard, particularly where there is a “vested interest.”
In San Francisco, as I recall, an ordinance has been passed so that a human cannot be an “owner” of a pet. They must now be registered as “guardians.” This is just a baby-step down the “animal rights” path, but undervaluing sentience could have quite a legal impact.
The physical laws tell us that all that there is, is a manifestation of wave phenomenon, thus the brain is a collective of wave phenomenon in itself, functioning within a seemingly endless sea of wave phenomenon - some of which may be a manifestation of other dimensions via resonance of superstrings or the effect of virtual particles or things we cannot begin to comprehend.
I assert that the brain itself is the transmitter/receiver that materializes a unity of consciousness which is the individual being. But the individual being cannot exist, materially, apart from the whole.
In the new age and Buddhist/Eastern mindset, the whole isn’t a being, it is a greater collective which is influenced by the individual and vice versa.
In the Christian mindset the believer abides within the higher, non-material, being who has all the free will characteristics of consciousness, which I described earlier encompasses language, comprehension, love, sacrifice, self-awareness, etc.
This is a great mystery (and probably inconceivable) to people who are not Christian, but it is the fact of life to those of us who are:
I have other personal experiences which confirm this assertion, including feeling the spirits of both my sister and mother pass through me as their physical bodies went into a deep coma before physical death, night travels, and so much more.
Do you think consciousness is a purely natural process, in the sense of having a purely material basis?
Gee, didn't we do this dance once before?
As opposed to what, a purely unnatural process???
Considering QM can we even say the 'purely material' has a purely material basis?
If I say 'yes' or 'no,' is that anything other than an opinion? What possible fact can I point to that demonstrates conclusively one way or the other?
In reality this question is due to an artificial split of the mapping of reality that doesn't exist in reality. There is no 'purely material' or 'purely immaterial' any more than there is 'dogness' vs 'beingness.'
The Universe is one big thing, and you can reduce it to any component parts you want but that is just your conceptual handles. You can't take the consciousness out of the Universe any more than you can take the material out of the Universe.
It's kind of like saying, what is your shape when you remove all the water from your body? None, because without the water there is no shape, just dust.
As I've seen you say before, 'the ghost in the machine, the ghost in the machine.' But there is no ghost and there is no machine, there is just existence.
IT is all of IT. And if that ain't natural, then what is?
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